The ANC Knows Exactly What It’s Doing: Corruption, Betrayal, and Crisis
South Africa emerged from the ashes of apartheid with dreams of freedom. It aspired for equality and prosperity. Today, it stands as a hollow shell of its former hopes. For decades, we’ve clung to a comforting lie. We believed that the African National Congress (ANC) is merely incompetent. We saw it as a bumbling giant tripping over its own feet. We’ve told ourselves that the endemic unemployment plaguing our land is due to poor leadership. The deep inequalities are also a result of shoddy planning. The persistent racial exclusion is an unfortunate byproduct of a lack of eloquence in English. But this narrative, soothing as it is, is a dangerous delusion. The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing, and what it’s doing is not a mistake.
It’s a calculated and malicious business model. It is designed for private profit and personal accumulation. It’s breaking the hearts of millions. It fuels the rage of a betrayed nation.
A Legacy of Broken Promises
When the ANC ascended to power in 1994, it carried the weight of a people’s dreams. Nelson Mandela envisioned a “Rainbow Nation.” It promised a future where all South Africans Black, White, Coloured, and Indian would stand as equals. The scars of apartheid would heal through shared prosperity and justice. Yet, 31 years later, the dream lies in tatters. Unemployment hovers at a staggering 33%, with youth unemployment nearing 60%. Millions live below the poverty line, scraping by in shacks without clean water, electricity, or hope. Racial exclusion persists. Black South Africans are still locked out of meaningful economic power. Meanwhile, a tiny elite, many tied to the ANC, amass wealth beyond imagination.
We’ve been told this is incompetence, a series of honest missteps by a party unprepared for the complexities of governance. But the ANC knows exactly what it’s doing. This is not a failure of ability; it’s a triumph of intent. The party has not stumbled into this crisis. It has engineered it. The party crafted a system where the suffering of the masses becomes the fuel for the enrichment of the few. The evidence is everywhere. There is tenderpreneurship, where contracts are awarded to connected cronies at inflated prices. There is state capture, where public institutions were looted under the watch of ANC leaders. A government of national unity (GNU) now serves as a fresh stage for the same old play of greed.
The GNU: A Theatre of Deception
The arrival of the GNU in 2024 was heralded by some as a new dawn. It was seen as a chance for collaboration across party lines to rescue South Africa from the brink. The ANC, alongside the Democratic Alliance (DA) and smaller parties, promised stability, reform, and unity. But scratch the surface, and the truth emerges like a festering wound. The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing. The GNU is no saviour. It’s a charade, a carefully choreographed performance to distract the public while the spoils are divided behind closed doors.
South Africa, we must grieve, but we must also fight. Our sadness must fuel our resolve; our anger must drive our action.
Watch the public spats between the ANC and the DA. They bicker over policy, trade barbs in the media, and posture as adversaries. But this is play-fighting, a scripted drama for the voters’ consumption. Behind the scenes, the ANC knows exactly what it’s doing, and so does the DA. Both parties, despite their rhetoric, share a vested interest. They preserve the structures of accumulation.
These structures enrich their leaders and their handlers those shadowy figures in boardrooms and backrooms who pull the strings. DA leader John Steenhuisen’s talk of “unity” to American audiences wasn’t a slip of the tongue. It was a signal to the global elite. The method remains profitable, predictable, and pliable. The ANC is very aware of its actions. It is ensuring the pie is sliced just right. There is enough for everyone at the top.
This is not unity for the people; it’s unity for the profiteers. While politicians conduct their pantomime, the structures of inequality, land ownership, corporate dominance, and wage gaps stay untouched. The ANC and DA shout at each other, but they agree on one thing: the framework must endure. And endure it does. It leaves millions in the dust. Their anger simmers. Their sadness deepens as promises of change dissolve into the same old stagnation.
The Corporate Co-Conspirators
If the ANC knows exactly what it’s doing, then corporations and analysts understand it as well. They are the ones who cry loudest about the party’s supposed incompetence. These voices pundits on TV, columnists in newspapers, and executives in skyscrapers love to lament the ANC’s “failures”. They decry the hollow regulations, the dysfunctional state, and the chaos of governance. But make no mistake: this chaos is their cover. The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing. These corporate giants are its eager accomplices. They are reaping billions from a system too broken to challenge their dominance.
Consider the mining sector. Multinational companies extract South Africa’s wealth in gold, platinum, and coal. They pay meagre wages and dodge accountability. Look at the banks, charging exorbitant fees to the poor while funnelling profits offshore. Examine the retailers raking in billions as food prices soar beyond the reach of ordinary families. These entities thrive in the dysfunction. They are shielded by a state too weak or too complicit to enforce fair taxes, labour laws, or environmental standards. The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing. It’s creating an environment perfect for profiteering. This is cloaked in the appearance of a failing government.
The sadness lies in the human cost. Families go hungry while CEOs toast to record earnings. Children drop out of school because parents can’t afford fees, while corporate tax breaks flourish. Communities choke on polluted air and water, while mining moguls bankroll political campaigns. The anger burns in the hearts of those who see the truth: this is not an accident. The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing. Its partners in the private sector are all too happy to play along.
The Cycle of Empty Promises
Every few years, the script repeats. The ANC introduces a new manifesto. It also presents a new leader. It showcases a new slogan: “A better life for all”, “Together we can do more”, and “Renewal and reform”. Change, they say, is just around the corner. Yet nothing changes. The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing. It dangles hope like a carrot before a weary donkey. The destination is already set. It means more wealth for the connected and more misery for the masses.
Take the National Development Plan, unveiled with fanfare in 2012. It promised jobs, growth, and equality by 2030. Today, in 2025, we’re nowhere close. Unemployment is worse, inequality is deeper, and racial divides stay stark. Or consider the “radical economic transformation” championed by some ANC factions. This was a rallying cry that sounded revolutionary. It delivered only more tenders for loyalists and more wealth for insiders. The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing. It is selling dreams to a desperate people. They rely on our patience and forgiveness. They also count on our willingness to believe the lie of incompetence over the truth of malice.
This cycle breaks hearts. It’s the grandmother in Soweto. She is waiting for a house promised decades ago. Now, she watches her grandchildren grow up in a shack. It’s the graduate in Durban, degree in hand, queuing for a job that never comes. It’s the miner in Marikana, gunned down by a state that protects profits over people. The sadness is palpable, a heavy weight on a nation that dared to dream. But the anger is rising, too anger at a party that knows better, a party that chooses greed over governance.
The Human Toll of a Deliberate Design
The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing, and the evidence is in the lives destroyed by its choices. In rural Eastern Cape, clinics stand empty, lacking doctors, medicines, or beds, while ANC-linked companies pocket millions from health contracts. In Gauteng, schools crumble. Textbooks go undelivered. Children learn under trees. Meanwhile, tenders for school infrastructure vanish into the hands of the well-connected. In Cape Town, informal settlements sprawl. Families are packed into tin shacks. Meanwhile, the ANC and DA squabble over optics instead of solutions.
The numbers tell a story of despair: 55% of South Africans live in poverty, according to Stats SA. Over 10 million go to bed hungry each night. Youth unemployment, at 59.7%, robs a generation of purpose, driving some to crime and others to despair. These are not accidents. The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing. It builds a system where the suffering of the many subsidises the luxury of the few. The sadness is in the eyes of a mother who can’t feed her child. The anger is in the clenched fists of a father who can’t find work.
The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing, and what it’s doing is not a mistake. It’s a calculated and malicious business model.
And what of accountability? State capture, exposed by the Zondo Commission, revealed billions looted from public coffers at Eskom, Transnet, and Prasa. ANC leaders either looked the other way or joined the feast. Yet, how many sit in jail? How many have repaid the stolen billions? The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing, shielding its own, delaying justice, and betting on our exhaustion. The GNU does not fix this. Instead, it extends the game. There are new players at the table, but the same rules are in play.
A Nation’s Fury and Grief
South Africans are not blind. We see the mansions of ANC cadres. We see the luxury cars and the overseas holidays. Meanwhile, we queue for water. We beg for jobs and bury our dreams. The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing, and we know it, too. The sadness is bone-deep, a collective grief for a nation promised liberation but delivered exploitation. The anger is a fire, burning in protests, in strikes, in the quiet rage of a people pushed too far.
We mourn the South Africa we were promised. It was a place where every child will thrive. Every worker earn a fair wage. Every citizen walk with dignity. We rage against a party that has turned its back on us. It dares to feign incompetence while orchestrating a heist of historic proportions. The ANC knows what it’s doing. Its corporate, political, and global partners cheer from the sidelines. They profit from our pain.
A Call to Awaken
The time for comforting lies is over. We can no longer pretend the ANC’s actions are mere mistakes. The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing, and it’s time we faced the truth. This design is deliberate. It is a business model of malice. In this model, the suffering of millions is the currency for elite enrichment. The GNU is no fix; it’s a fresh coat of paint on a rotting house. The corporations are not victims; they’re co-conspirators. And the promises of change? They’re bait to keep us docile.
South Africa, we must grieve, but we must also fight. Our sadness must fuel our resolve; our anger must drive our action. Demand transparency where does the money go? Demand justice who will pay for the looting? Demand a new path. It should dismantle the structures of accumulation. It must put people before profits. It must honour the dream of 1994. The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing, and so must we. We must know exactly what we’re doing, rising, resisting, and rebuilding a nation stolen from us.
The ANC knows exactly what it’s doing. It’s time we did, too.
